Investing.com - Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) reported fourth quarter earnings that beat analysts' expectations on Thursday but revenue that fell short of forecasts.
The stock bounced around after hours as investors tried to get a handle on the numbers. Subscriber additions came in ahead of company guidance, but profit guidance for the first quarter looked shy of estimates.
Paid subscriber additions, the key metric for the company, came in at 8.8 million for the fourth quarter, above company guidance of 7.6 million and above Wall Street forecasts. Domestic subscribers rose by 1.53 million, about in line with forecasts, but international subscribers jumped by 7.31 million, well ahead of estimates.
For the first quarter Netflix sees subscriber additions of 8.9 million, 1.6 million in the U.S. and 7.3 million internationally, which is above forecasts of around 8 million, according to Briefing.com.
But the company also said it sees earnings of 56 cents per share in the first quarter, well below the Street consensus of 86 cents per share.
Shares were down 3.2% at 4:35 PM ET (21:35 GMT).
The company reported earnings per share of $0.30 on revenue of $4.19 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com expected EPS of $0.25 on revenue of $4.21 billion. That compared to EPS of $0.41 on revenue of $3.29 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Netflix announced it would be raising its main subscription service price earlier this week.
The company has been adding subscribers at a good clip, fueled by a ramped up spending on original content. The company had said it planned to spend $8 billion in 2018, $1 billion more than 2017, on creating original content.
The additions come against the backdrop of intensifying competition in the streaming services space. AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) plan to launch their services later this year, joining a field that currently includes Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Video service and Hulu.
But the aggressive spending on content has been accompanied by a doubling of the company's debt, to $6.50 billion in 2017 from $3.36 billion in 2016.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.